Life Coaching: 7 Reasons To Be More Like A Puppy Dog In 2013

By Tim Brownson, Certified Life Coach & Published Author

I was recently having a conversation with John Strelecky, my co-author on the book How To Be Rich and Happy – about dogs of all things. We were thinking the book could have been written by one of my dogs quite easily, presuming of course they had bark recognition software for the transcribing process.

Now before you rush to call the men in white coats and tell them to have their very best long sleeved jacket at the ready, let me explain what I mean and offer you 7 reasons that will prove to you most dogs are indeed rich and happy…

1. Dogs Don’t Hold Grudges

When my younger dog thought it was fun to bite my testicles a few weeks ago, I wasn’t happy, and she knew it. After rolling around in agony for a period of time, I then shouted “NO!” at her whilst pointing at my traumatized genitalia.

She sensed I was unhappy with her and skulked away in disgrace to lick her wounds. Yet within 10 minutes, she was back complete with a waggly stump and wanting to play. How can you stay mad at somebody that is so forgiving and happy to be alive?

The answer for me is, I can’t, and I suspect you can’t either. Happy dogs are like those people that are always in a good mood, always fun to be around and have charisma by the boat load.

2. Dogs Know Their Values

One of the things that rich and happy people understand is what drives them at a core level. They also understand that aligning with their values is absolutely critical if they are going to live the rich and happy life.

So if peace is a top value they seek peace. If love is at the top, they demonstrate love and if their number one anti-value is stress they do whatever is needed to get the proper recovery time from stressful events.

Dogs know this too. Dogs may not have the range of values that humans do, but maybe that’s a problem with us rather than our four-legged friends. Loyalty, family, trust, love and in some cases independence are all important values to rich and happy dogs, and they are values that they never slip out of alignment with.

3. Dogs Don’t Judge People

My dogs don’t care whether you’re the pizza delivery guy, the mail man, the Pope or even my mother-in-law, they are still happy to see you. They also don’t care if you’re black, white, beautiful, ugly, straight, gay, tall, short or even French. They love everybody that makes a fuss of them. What would the world be like if it was ruled by rich and happy dogs, eh?

4. Dogs Don’t Waste Money

I have lived with dogs a good deal of my life. Not once in all that time has one ever returned from the Black Friday sales and said, “Look how much money I’ve just saved,” and then proceeded to hold up a dress, the cost of which could have wiped out the national debt of a small Caribbean country.

Now you may be thinking dogs don’t usually carry cash around with them and you would be right. However, if they did, they wouldn’t spend it on luxuries they didn’t need, thinking these luxuries would make them feel more rich and happy.

Certainly they may go a bit nuts on the pig ears order, and I think steak would take the place of Pedigree Chum, but I doubt they’d be changing cars every two years or borrowing money to buy a home that has four guest bedrooms… you know, just in case people we haven’t seen in 10 years want to come and stay.

5. Dogs Don’t Worry

We ran out of dog food one day last week. Did the dogs worry about it?

Nope.

Did they pace around wondering what they were going to have for dinner?

Nope.

Did they have a disagreement with each other over who had to get the car out and fetch some food?

Nope.

They just napped whilst I fetched the food.

Rich and Happy people don’t worry excessively and chronically. Rich and Happy people would prefer to take a nap than worry, and for the most part they would prefer to act than nap.

Worrying serves no purpose, taking action does. Rich and happy dogs take action… or have a nap.

6. Dogs Don’t Try To Keep Up With The Joneses

Rich and Happy people concentrate on what THEY want out of life. Their happiness isn’t based on some imaginary score card kept by other people, it’s tied to how they feel about themselves and their life. If they want a boat, it’s because they want a boat and not because their best friend has one.

I take my Dobermans to the dog park every day and guess what? They seem completely oblivious to what the other dogs are wearing. They never complain that their collars aren’t diamond encrusted or their leash made of the finest Mongolian Yak hide, they just run around and have fun sniffing each others butts.

For them a rich and happy life involves doing whatever they want (sniffing butts), whenever they want (any time they’re not eating or sleeping).

7. Dogs Don’t Feel Guilty

My youngest dog, Tori, once ate a pair of $600 bifocal glasses with progressive lenses about a week after I got them. Since she got told off about it, I haven’t noticed her struggling to sleep because she is racked with guilt.

In fact, I haven’t actually noticed her looking guilty about anything. She will pull off a sheepish look when trotting past me with my boxer shorts in her mouth, but that’s about as far as it goes. She knows rich and happy dogs have no time to feel guilty when a raid on the sock drawer is to be planned.

So what do you think? Are you with me in believing most dogs (presuming they have a loving home) are very rich and happy? And do you ever wonder why we can’t be like that too?

About the Author
Tim Brownson is an English Professional Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner and author living in Orlando, Florida. He is currently involved in a unique project to give away 1,000,000 copies of the hard copy version of the critically acclaimed book he has co-authored called “How To Be Rich and Happy.”